Black-Eyed Susans Read Online Free PDF Page A

months.”
    Three hundred and twenty-six days,
doctor.
But I don’t correct him.
    A slight squeak as he shifts in his chair,
     and Oscar rises up protectively. “There are exceptions,” he says. “I
     once treated a boy, a virtuoso pianist, who had practiced eight hours a day since he was
     five. He woke up one morning and his hands were frozen. Paralyzed. Couldn’t even
     hold a glass of milk. Doctors couldn’t find a cause. He began to wiggle his
     fingers exactly two years later, to the day.”
    The doctor’s voice is closer. At my
     side. Oscar bangs my arm with his nose, to let me know. The doctor is sliding something
     thin and cool and smooth into my hand. “Try this,” he says.
    A pencil. I grasp it. Dig it deep into the
     side of my cast. Feel intense, gratifying relief. A slight breeze as the doctor moves
     away, maybe the flap of his jacket. I’m certain he looks nothing like Tommy Lee
     Jones. But I can picture Oscar. White as fresh snow. Blue eyes that see everything. Red
     collar. Sharp little teeth if you bother me.
    “Does this piano player know that you
     talk about him to other patients?” I ask. I can’t help myself. The sarcasm
     is a horsewhip I can’t put away. But on our third Tuesday morning together, I have
     to admit this doctor is starting to get to me. I’m feeling the first pinch of
     guilt. Like I need to try harder.
    “As a matter of fact,
     yes. I was interviewed for a Cliburn documentary about him. The point is: I believe you
     will see again.”
    “I’m not worried.” I blurt
     it out.
    “That is often a symptom of conversion
     disorder. A lack of caring about whether you’ll ever go back to normal. But, in
     your case, I don’t think that’s true.”
    His first direct confrontation. He waits
     silently. I feel my temper flare.
    “I know the real reason why you made
     an exception to see me.” My voice cracks a little when I want it to sound defiant.
     “What you have in common with my father. I know you had a daughter who
     disappeared.”

Tessa, present day
    Angie’s utilitarian metal desk looks
     exactly the way I remember, buried in mountains of paper and file folders. Shoved into a
     corner of an expansive, open basement room at St. Stephen’s, the stone-and-brick
     Catholic church that sits defiantly in the 2nd Avenue and Hatcher Street corridor of
     hell. Smack in the center of a Dallas neighborhood that made a Top 25 FBI list for most
     dangerous in the nation.
    It is high Texas noon outside, but not in
     here. In here, it is gloomy and timeless, colored by the stains of a violent history,
     when this church was abandoned for eight years and this room was used as an execution
     factory for drug dealers.
    The first and only time I’d been here,
     Angie told me that the hopeful young priest who rented her the space whitewashed the
     walls four times himself. The indentations and bullet holes in the walls, he told her,
     were going to be permanent, like the nails in the cross. Never forget.
    Her desk lamp is the single thing glowing,
     casting faint light on the unframed print tacked above it.
The Stoning of Saint
     Stephen.
Rembrandt’s first known work, painted at nineteen. I had learned
     about the chiaroscuro technique in another basement, with my grandfather bent over his
     easel. Strong lights and heavy shadows.Rembrandt was a master of it.
     He made sure the brilliance of heaven was opening up for Saint Stephen, the first
     Christian martyr, murdered by a mob because evil people told lies about him. Three
     priests huddle in the upper corner. Watching him die. Doing nothing.
    I wonder which came first to the basement:
     this print or Angie, who decided Saint Stephen’s fate was a most appropriate
     marker for her desk. The edges of the print are soft and furry. It is attached to the
     pockmarked wall by three scratched yellow thumbtacks and one red one. A small rip on the
     left side has been repaired with Scotch tape.
    Two inches away is another